Giving Tuesday has been around since 2012 and shows no signs of disappearing off the giving calendar anytime soon. In fact, in 2021 U.S. donors gave over $2.7 billion online on Giving Tuesday. That’s a lot of funding awesome moola! Nonprofits who participate in Giving Tuesday work hard to put together their campaign, rally supporters and reach their goals. But it can be a very noisy climate to raise money in. After all, lots of nonprofits are raising money that day and competing for donors’ attention and dollars. So what’s your nonprofit to do? 

We want to help you win at online giving this Giving Tuesday so we’ve got a round-up of strategies, tips, and helpful to-dos to prepare your organization for its best Giving Tuesday campaign ever. 

#1—Mobile everything

Mobile devices account for more than half of all online traffic and nearly 25% of donors use their mobile device to make their donation. With a huge focus on online giving during Giving Tuesday, it pays (literally) to make your giving experience mobile-friendly.

Two major things you need to make mobile-friendly are your website and your online giving form. This is also super important if you're thinking about implementing Text Engagement into your Giving Tuesday fundraising strategy. The best way to check the current state of your website and online giving form is to pull out your smartphone and experience it on the small screen for yourself. If you realize your nonprofit’s mobile experience could be improved, enlist the help of a professional to make some tweaks.

P.S. Funraise's online giving forms are automatically optimized for all mobile devices.

#2—Engage your audience early and consistently

There’s nothing more jarring than suddenly receiving tons of communication from an organization that you haven’t heard from in months. In the months leading up to Giving Tuesday (and year-end giving), make a plan to consistently engage your audience.

Here are some things you can try. 

• Regularly send emails to your list to keep them engaged 
• Post consistently on your most active social media channels
• Test out new engagement strategies like live social video

#3—Send more than one email

Your supporters’ inboxes are going to be full-on Giving Tuesday so it’s easy for your emails to get lost in the shuffle. That’s why you need to plan a strategic email campaign leading up to Giving Tuesday. And guess what? We've made it super easy for you with our Giving Tuesday Toolkit! Get copypastable email templates to send to your supporters so you can keep that momentum going and raise mucho funds.

#4—Engage everyone’s inner circles

Your board members, staff and volunteers can be great ambassadors for your cause. They can help spread the word about your Giving Tuesday campaign, drive traffic to your website, and bring in new donors. It’s all about wielding the power of social fundraising. As you prepare for Giving Tuesday, you also need to prepare your ambassadors to spread the word. 

Start about two months before by creating your Giving Tuesday "superstar committee.” These are all the people who will help by posting about the campaign on social, re-posting your organization’s social posts, and forwarding fundraising emails to their contacts. Then about a month out, send an update email to your street team to give them the inside scoop on your Giving Tuesday plans. 

The real magic happens of course right around Giving Tuesday. Prepare your street team by giving them pre-written social posts and emails that they can use (which you'll also find in the Giving Tuesday Toolkit). Give them tips to make the posts their own to engage their community. Then on Giving Tuesday itself send out a beginning of day, middle of day, and end of day reminder about posting. Finally, make sure to give your street team some love with a heartfelt thanks after the campaign has wrapped up. 

#5—Ads, Ad, Ads

If your organization wants to supercharge its reach on Giving Tuesday, consider putting some ad power behind your campaign. No, we’re not talking about hitting the “boost” button on Facebook. We’re talking about strategic, targeted ads that support your campaign. 

If you want to get creative with Facebook ads, spend time creating the best audience possible for your ads—a warm audience. This will potentially lower your cost per conversion and get you even better results. You can upload your nonprofit’s email list into the Facebook Ads Manager to create a custom audience that you can retarget with ads. You can also add the Facebook pixel to your website to target ads at people who have visited your website in the last 30 days. Spend time building out the right audience for your ads for increased success. 

If your nonprofit has a Google Adwords Grant, you can try running Google ads for your campaign. Success with Adwords is all about finding the right keywords and setting up great audience targeting. In the months before Giving Tuesday, test out different keywords for possible ads as well as different audiences. 

We know your organization can win at Giving Tuesday! Start preparing early and make sure your online presence and tools are ready to give donors the best experience possible. Together, social media, your website, and your online giving form create a super-powered trifecta to help your nonprofit have its best Giving Tuesday yet.